The present invention generally relates to fuel supplying apparatuses, and more particularly to a fuel supplying apparatus designed to automatically greet a customer and inform him of the result of a fuel supplying operation, for example, by speech.
Conventionally, as one type of a fuel supplying apparatus, there was a fixed type measuring device. The only information this fixed type measuring device gave to a customer, was a visual display of the quantity of supplied fuel. In order to improve the service to the customer and provide a confirmation of the quantity of supplied fuel, an improved fuel supplying apparatus was previously proposed in a Japanese Utility Model Application No. 57-153846 which has now been laid open as Japanese Laid-Open Utility Model Application No. 59-57399. According to this previously proposed apparatus, the quantity of supplied fuel is automatically informed to the customer by speech, by carrying our a speech synthesis. This previously proposed apparatus also has a function to automatically give greetings by speech to the customer, by saying "WELCOME" before the fuel supplying operation is carried out and saying "THANK YOU VERY MUCH" after the fuel supplying operation is carried out, for example.
However, in this previously proposed apparatus, the apparatus gives the sequence of information including the "WELCOME" greeting, the quantity of supplied fuel, and the "THANK YOU" greeting, for each vehicle, even when the apparatus must continuously carry out the fuel supplying operation with respect to a plurality of successively incoming vehicles. Thus, a fuel supplying operation could only be carried out with respect to a subsequent vehicle only after the sequence of information had been given to the first vehicle, and there was a problem in that the fuel supplying operation could not be carried out swiftly. In addition, the quantity of supplied fuel and the "THANK YOU" greeting which were given to the previous vehicle, was also given to the vehicle which followed. As a result, there was a problem in that the operator of the fuel supplying apparatus and the customer may become confused by the information which was intended for the previous vehicle but continued to be given to the following vehicle. In other words, the operator and the customer may erroneously take the quantity of supplied fuel which was given to the previous vehicle, as if it were intended for this following vehicle.